


Deserted Corridors at the End of the World

by QueSeraAwesome



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Aftermath, Before Battle, Canonical Character Death, Established Relationship, M/M, Minor Canonical Character(s), Missing Scene, Set between Episodes 16 and 17, Wash Angst, life-affirming Make-outs, season 13
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-20
Updated: 2017-06-20
Packaged: 2018-11-16 08:55:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11249826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueSeraAwesome/pseuds/QueSeraAwesome
Summary: Armonia is gone, and in the wake of their loss, Wash tries to find a way to breathe.





	Deserted Corridors at the End of the World

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much to Anneapocalypse and SaltSanford for looking this over for me! You are the absolute best.

Armonia is gone. But they were prepared for that. They planned for that.

Doyle is dead.

Felix and Locus are still alive.

That wasn’t in the plan.

Kimball hasn’t spoken since the Pelican collapsed with a rattle and heave outside Crash Site Bravo. Carolina keeps rotating between her side and trying to dredge up something like organization from their scattered and shattered forces.

Epsilon hasn’t woken up. They’ve managed to get him online, but he’s still unresponsive.

And Wash is sitting on a beat-up crate in the wreck of the _Hand of Merope_. The room they’ve gathered in might have been an off-duty lounge, bulkheads cracked open to the sky in place of a door. What remained of the couches had been picked over and dragged into various bases what feels like ages ago. They gather in a strange sort of circle, avoid each other’s eyes, and wait.  

It’s only a matter of time now.

Except they can’t wait. They need a plan. Wash needs to be doing something, acting, being where Carolina can’t be because she can’t actually be two places at once. Helping.

He can still hear it in his head, “Doyle’s not with us.” Except he keeps remembering it wrong. He hears himself demanding, _“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”_ And Tucker’s cheery voice answering back.

_“Chillax, dude. We gotta have some bait to keep those fuckers in the city. I got this.”_

_“Tucker, get out of there. We need you on that ship.”_

_“Wash, shut the fuck up I’m trying to give these guys the slip, haaa, bowchickabowwow-- oh fuck!!”_

_“Tucker!”_

_“I’m okay! It’s cool! Shit, that was close. Stop talking to me, dude, I’m trying to do the hero thing.”_

_“Get to extraction now.”_

_“Just as soon as I set the reactor, it’s fine. I can do this.”_

_“......Be_ careful _.”_

Grif stomps into the room with a box under his arm and starts passing canteens and water bottles out. There isn’t enough for everyone, but no one complains, or says much at all as they each drink and pass it on. Condensation beads the outside of the bottle Sarge passes him and ice cubes rattle inside.  

He has no idea where someone found water, let alone ice for it, but the chill sours in his already roiling stomach and he passes the next time he’s offered a drink, puts his helmet back on so it won’t be offered again. Across the circle Tucker’s guzzling down a bottle like it’s done something to offend him. Wash closes his eyes, tries to listen to the sound of Tucker chomping ice cubes instead of the soundtrack of what-ifs playing on loop in his head.

_“....Fuck.”_

_“What is it?” he demands to damning silence. “Tucker, respond. What’s wrong.”_

_“Um, the console got a little...trashed. Looks like the timed detonation isn't gonna work.”_

Instead of Doyle, it’s Tucker’s voice over the radio arguing about _no time_ , about _I have to do this_ , even as his voice shakes with fear and anger. Instead, it’s Carolina dragging Wash abord the Pelican while he screams himself hoarse over the radio.

_“Tell my kid I loved him, okay? Make the story badass.”_

And it doesn’t matter that it didn’t happen, that it isn’t real. He hears it in the silence echoing around them.

What he _wants_ to do is yell. Grab Tucker by the collar and drag him off. Shout. Demand answers, _solutions_. Find a way to go back in time and stop Doyle. Murder Felix the second he catches sight of him. Put a bullet in the back of Locus’s skull the first time the merc turned his back on him in the Fed compound. March out of here and find a way to handle this, all of this, while everyone he cares about sits quietly in this room, away from the action and the danger.

Instead, he folds his arms together until he's sure they won't reach out and do something stupid. Something overdramatic. Something _unhelpful_.

He looks up, catches Tucker’s eyes and swallows. Clenches his fists tighter.

Something passes between them, some understanding conveyed from behind the warped mirror of his faceplate. Something he can’t describe, but feels in his bones.

“I need to talk to you,” he says in his best strict professional voice.

Tucker stands. His face is shuttered and solemn.

“Yeah. All right. “

No one else says anything as Tucker gathers his helmet from the floor.

“So fucked,” Grif stage-whispers as he passes and Tucker shoves him hard enough he sways with it.

Wash can't think about that now. Wash can only stand and not tap his foot and turn to fall into step with him as the double doors swing shut behind them.

They keep walking further into the ship, turning left than right and left again until they find a dusty unused corridor. Spiderwebbing cracks fissure the hull here, letting in stubborn shards of light. At least, where the jungle, moss and vines and other green things, haven’t begun to grow.  It’s the closest to privacy that they're going to get.

Wash crowds him to the wall, hands on his face and Tucker goes. Tucker lets him. It's only as the visor of his helmet bumps against Tucker's forehead that he remembers he's wearing it. He's wearing it and Tucker isn't, deep dark eyes bright and serious and steady on his, his mouth a hard line in the gloom.

Tucker's thumbs depress his helmet seals and Wash lets his hands drop to Tucker's sides, bracketing him in, fingertips pressed to the steel of the wall so hard they must turn white inside his gloves.

He lets Tucker strip the helmet off him, lets him drop it to the ground.

He presses him closer into the wall, can't look at him, eyes closed and mouth open, a puff of breath against his face when Tucker exhales and then Wash's kissing him.

He's kissing him, lips too dry and his stubble rasping against Tucker's. He licks into Tucker's mouth and the shock of wet makes it sweeter, almost painfully so. Tucker’s mouth isn't warm, his tongue a flex of chilled muscle (and oh, Tucker's kissing him back, oh, oh, he isn't sure when that started). Wash shudders hard as their tongues meet and stroke, shudders and keeps shuddering right down to his boots. Tucker hands come up to cup the back of his neck, his jaw, gloved fingers careful in his hair. The kevlar of his collar itches against the drying sweat on Wash’s neck and Wash would do too many things for the dry slide of Tucker's palms instead.

They don't have time for that. They don't have time for this either.

Tucker's jaw pushes against his, pulling him back into the moment.

His skin is oversensitive, nerves sparking and firing, tingling like pins and needles to the point of pain. He tries to reign himself in, tries to stop not so much kissing Tucker as trying to devour him. Like he’s trying to drown in him. Like he’s trying to draw something of Tucker so far inside him it chases this hollow feeling from his bones.

He shouldn’t be doing this.

He tries to pull away but Tucker's hands won't let him go far. He opens his eyes. Tucker's are still bright and as serious as the depths of space.

“Wash,” he says. The shush at the end of his name fans breath across his lower lip and Wash wants to kiss him again.

He wants Tucker’s breath in his lungs. He wants to chase Tucker’s pulse with his mouth on his skin, to feel the throb of his blood, alive, alive, alive.

“Fuck,” Tucker whispers, as though something he sees in Wash’s face is breaking him open. He hauls Wash closer, flush against him. The angle is awkward on his neck, chin shoved over Tucker's shoulder, forehead against the wall, their cheekbones knocking against each other. Tucker’s hands are twin points of contact between his shoulder blades, fingers layered over his spine, arms _tight._ Wash can’t hold him back like this so he just lets Tucker take his weight. Presses back until the angles of their armor, puzzle pieces that don’t fit, have no more give to spare. Until there is no closer they can have right now.

Tucker curls into him, face pressed to the plate of his shoulder. Their breathing syncs. Slows. Their grips do not relax. Outside, some kind of bird lands on the hull of the ship, soft hopping and flapping sounds filtering through the cracks. It trills a few notes before flying away.

When Tucker speaks, his voice is barely above a whisper.

“Church wake up yet?”

Wash shakes his head, just enough for Tucker to feel it. Tucker’s shoulder goes tense against him and then, slowly, like he’s forcing it, relaxes. Wash nudges him, their hair mussing together, and hopes it comes out reassuring.

“He will,” he says. “He hasn’t had a chance to gloat about that stunt saving our lives yet.”

Tucker’s chest heaves, a huff of laughter escaping him. He picks up his head from Wash’s shoulder, lets it loll back against the bulkhead. Sighs explosively, like he can force the tension from his lungs if he tries hard enough.

“We should head back,” Tucker says. “If we take too long Grif will never let me hear the end of it.”

He shifts, and Wash means to move, he really does. He means to step back and maybe kiss him one more time and walk back shoulder to shoulder to rejoin the others. That’s what he needs to do. But when Tucker pushes off the wall, he can’t make himself do it. Can’t make himself pull away. Can’t do anything but press his face into Tucker’s neck and breathe, breathe.

Tucker freezes, arms tightening around his sides again.

“Wash,” he asks. “What…”

“I just keep thinking--” his voice goes hoarse. He swallows and tries again. “I keep thinking. It could have been you. Instead of Doyle.”

Tucker pulls back to look at him incredulously. Wash ducks his head, shame adding itself to the knot in his chest.

“If it had been you who had taken off--”

“It wouldn’t have.” Tucker interrupts, firm. “I wouldn’t do that.”

“But if it _had…”_

“I’m not the guy who takes off by himself,” Tucker bites out. “That’s you.”

Wash shakes his head. Meets his eyes, so Tucker can see the truth on him and in his face.

“Not anymore,” he says. “I learned my lesson. I promise.”

Tucker’s eyebrows knit together like he doesn’t believe him, but he doesn’t say anything. Wash can be okay with that. He can see Tucker’s decision to let it go, to take him at his word in the clenching of the muscle in the corner of his jaw.

But the feeling in his own gut won’t dissipate, no matter how hard he wills it away.

Tucker sighs in a gust of frustration and Wash grits his teeth, chewing back the “I’m sorry” that won’t be appreciated anyway. He forces himself to take a reluctant step back and Tucker doesn’t follow, just leans back against the bulkhead and crosses his arms over his chest.

“If it _had_ been me,” Tucker starts. Stops. Shakes his head like the entire idea is preposterous. “If it'd been me, it’d’ve been me and like, a warthog full of Reds too, and then we wouldn’t’ve been in Doyle’s situation in the first place,” he says. “I wouldn’t have gone alone.”

Tucker’s eyes burn into his. Every inch the soldier Wash knew he could be, if only he dug deep and tried. Somewhere in the roiling sea of things he feels for Tucker, there is a part that is sad and still, wrapped in a current of pride and admiration.

“Don’t do alone,” Tucker hisses in face, jabbing a finger at his chest. “Alone always gets somebody dead.”

Wash swallows past the lump in his throat and nods.

“No one goes it alone.”

He takes a step back, knocking his helmet. It rolls across the hallway with a clatter, impossibly loud in the hush of this section of the ship. Tucker bends to pick his own up and Wash’s gaze lingers on his face. On the familiar line of his jaw, the curve of his cheek, his lips, the way the light and shadow fall across his skin.

It won’t make any difference if either of them are alone or not if Felix makes it into the Purge Temple, now that he has a working sword. This will be over soon. For better or worse.

Tucker spins his helmet between his hands as he straightens. He looks up at Wash and then double takes, and for just a moment Wash sees it. That Tucker is just as afraid as he is.

And out of the knot of fear and tension that fills him, Wash feels something bloom, petal soft and singing, that something echoed back in Tucker’s eyes.

“Fuck, c’mere, dude—”

The helmet hits the floor.

They fall against the wall again, Tucker's arms tight around him, tangled together. They'll head back in a minute. Right now, Tucker is kissing him and kissing him, and he needs this first. They both need this first.

No matter what happens next, they’ll have this.

This war will be over soon. One way or another, this will all be over soon.

**Author's Note:**

> queseraawesome.tumblr.com


End file.
